Beej and Alfo,

had exactly same issue with mine hooked up via optical out to my yamaha receiver. In the end I could not get this fixed for optical no matter what I tried (rew / ff for short time as noted works but is annoying). Support recommended I reformat and reset back to system defaults. I did this in combination with switching over to RCA and have only rarely had the issue since (seagate drive and original firmware).

I suspect that the sound drop outs are due to the short stuttering (2 to 3 short stutters) I usually experience when hitting play after REW/FF but the RCA to the amp seems to cope ok whereas the optical drops out. In my opinion it all sounds fine via RCA anyway so not too bothered.

I'm loving my STB and have recommended to others; if they can find one.

I just got a new notebook (Mac) with Leopard O/S and would like to copy data off the STB via the USB.


Is this possible?

Dacho

Some of the posts are missing from Sunday night, forum had a problem.

Anyway, this reply is for the person who bought the DS6200PVR for $120.00
and asked about Firmware, difficulty formatting the Hard Drive and optical to coax converter.

Your firmware is the latest, v1042a

I don't know why you're getting that error message formatting the hard drive,
repost the error message and other members may have the answer.


Optical Toslink to S/PDIF Coaxial Digital Audio Converter



or




They look the same but the price varies greatly.

Hi Birdman,
That was moi.
Thanks for the quick reply.
Since posting I have recorded my first couple of shows, so I'll need to watch them before I can try reformatting again.
On a more worrying note I just discovered after reading my sales receipt, that it says: "Warranty Declined."
Now that's not what the sales person or the chick on the checkout said.
Methinks I'll be giving them a call!
I noticed a couple of TOS to COAX things on eBay as well. The one you linked to at Photonage looks promising but it doesn't say whether it includes the DC power pack?

PS Rang Dick Smith but the Warranty Declined thing refers only to the fact I turned down the extended warranty.

Problems.
A couple of times now the box has locked up.
Although the LED flashes green in response to the remote it won't do anything.
The only way I have found to fix it is to turn it off and on with the rocker switch on the back.
Has anyone else had this happen and if so how can I fix it?

Have a look at post 750


Try turning off Time Shift and see if that fixes your problem.
I have the Seagate HD with original firmware v1.03.2A and had a couple of lock ups when I first started using it.
They went away after turning off Time Shift.

Thanks for the tip. I'll give it a try!

Thanks. That seems to have done the trick. Hasn't happened again since I switched if off.

Great, glad to help.
The 6200PVR is a good unit but I think there is too much going on when Time Shift is enabled.
(My thoughts) If the unit starts to timer record a different channel to the one your watching you have basically 2 channels recording at the same time (1 timeshift and 1 timer). Theoretically you should be able to watch something else on the Hard Drive. But it has a problem with it.
Definitely a firmware problem, but with TimeShift off it's OK.
They may fix this with another update, but I doubt whether they will bother.

Quick update. Have had no issues in this configuration. Only a slight stutter once in a while, when there's a couple of things going on ( e.g. starts recording while I'm watching another recording or live replay ) which doesn't reflect in the recordings.

All looking good. Twice the hard drive space certainly makes a big difference to how much you can store on the unit, but I'm still finding myself having to regularly cull things off.

I don't believe that the none CE hard drive has excessive noise but YMMV !

Cheers.

I've just experienced my first recording glitch with this unit

I have Spicks and Specks set up as weekly timer record. Last night, we watched House, safe in the knowledge that S&S was being recorded. This evening, I discovered that while the end of New Inventors was there (so it started recording ABC), it changed over to record channel 10 at 8:30 when we changed channel to watch House. Anyone else had this problem?

I've had a couple of programs not record. The file is there, but with 0.00.00 program in it. It happened last night with Medium, which was set to record for 100 minutes, but recorded for zero. It happened while were in time shift mode, watching ABC, but the previous time, it occured while nothing was one. Any ideas? We have had other perfect recordings at the same time - and two years of flawless service... confusing.

Silly question, but you haven't got any other devices that you are using that might have the same IR signal for different functions.

My PVR, DVD and PMP all "share" IR signals, and we used to find that if people were watching the DVD player then the PVR would record etc.. etc..

All fixed though with a Harmony remote.

Cheers.

Has anyone tried to replace the drive with a large capacity item? The Seagate MB35 (CE) drives of size 250Gb and more aren't expensive.

Yes see, above, I've replaced with a non CE 320GB Seagate, with no problems ( once you've sorted out the correct firmware to run )

Cheers.

Hi

I don't think this is the problem, as I was watching Channel 10 through the DSE at the same time as recording ABC (i.e., not switching between devices). Instead of stitching to the other tuner, it changed what I was recording from ABC to 10.

Had the thing for a couple of months now and really like it. It does all I ask of it. I think one day I may go for the Beyonwiz DP-P1 when they are at a reasonable price or if it has wireless 802.11n installed.

After having this unit for a while now and having mucked around with drives and firmwares there's only 2 things that poop me about the DSE:

1. Only 10 timers
2. Can't manually prename recordings.

other than this its a great beast for the price.

Zoonie,

That's great to hear. This size drive is dirt cheap right now, so I'll look at changing it at some time. What interface, ATA or SATA (Saves me pulling mine to bits to find out)?

Cheers.

The interface is ATA.

BTW The only other problem I found, was:
3. When you are viewing timeshift and a timer recording starts, you get thrown out of timeshift and lose the saved timeshift.

One nice feature: Manually recording a progam, during one timer recording and a second timer recording starts, it asks you what to do and handles the two recording limit very well.

What version of f/w did you use, version 1.04a (Or whatever it is)?

Thanks for that.

Yes, had to "backdate" firmware to 1040A

It appears that firmwares above this version address issues with the original Western Digital Drives only and I had a lot of lock ups etc using newer firmwares with the Seagate drive.

1041A might work but in this firmware PIP doesn't work at all ( green screen of death ). Wasn't even tested.
1042A fixes the issues with original WD drives but creates lockups with Seagate.


Cheers.

I'll have to download that f/w again and upgrade when the warranty expires.

Thanks.

hi i have the dse6200and the same thing has happened to me. its a pain i have contacted the service technitions (the unit is warrantied and serviced buy Topfield) and he hadnt heard of the problem but was going to find out if there was afirmware update that might fix the problem. for me it only seems to happen between channel 2 and 10. The other option in the interum is to reset the pvr to factory settings and start from scratch. but otherwise I have found this to be a good unit

Ten and the ABC have made a lot of changes lately. I'd definitely do a factory reset and rescan the channels (and then delete the HD channels).

Timers are associated to channels by their position in the channel list. If anything in your channel list ever changes (including deleting any channels) you need to delete and recreate all of your timers.

A glitch . . .
Last night I went to turn it off and it was recording.
Funny, I thought, I don't remember setting it to record anything at this time?
When I checked I found that it had been set to record SBS for 70 mins from 7.30pm - but it was still recording the same channel at 9.15pm.
Only way I could stop it was to turn it off and I lost the recording naturally?
On another note, will this unit pass a signal to a Hi Def LCD I am thinking of buying. ie if you plug the antenna into the PVR can it then pass the signal to the built in Hi Def tuner in the LCD via the TV out connection (and do so in Hi Def?)

Yep

Hi RadioBirdman

Have tried this and the problem is still there. Only when watching a pre-recorded program and then if the timer activates, and I stop watching the pre-recorded program at some point in time while the timed recording is still going, the timer recording will either lock up or change channel depending on a whole range of things as described in my previous post.

I see some reference to this problem from some others recently as well.

Hi trevormild

I think this glitch is defined by a previous post which I copy below. I have experienced it and firmly believe it is a firmware problem (no pun intended...)

QUOTE(Nick C @ May 9 2007, 09:04 AM)
Getting on great with this device, just one issue;

If I am watching an existing recording from the HD and a new recording starts, often the new recording messes up. Either is only 2 minutes long or misses the middle. The icons on the PVR software indicate that the unit is recording, but only from looking at the List menu can you see that the recording is only 2 minutes long and takes up 64 Mb....

If I leave the box alone or am using it as a STB, it works beautifully, two channels at once is bliss... The problem is only caused if I am watching an existing recording.

Any ideas?


I can make this problem - or at least something very similar - happen at will. It happens when you stop playing a recording, during which the PVR started recording something that required it to change the channel. Let me give you the sequence of steps:
1. Start by watching a channel live. (Say channel 2).
2. Set the PVR to record something in the not-too-distant future. (Say on channel 10). The key is that this has to be a channel OTHER than the one in step 1.
3. Start watching something you've previously recorded. Keep doing so until the PVR commences to record whatever you set in step 2.
4. Once the PVR has started the recording, stop the playback. You will find yourself watching the channel you were watching in step 1.
5. Stop the recording in progress (unless you want to let it proceed to completion).

The results vary depending on what channel you chose in step 2:
- If you chose channel 10, you will find the recording continues, but has changed to the channel in steps 1 & 4.
- If you chose channel 9, the recording will have stopped when you stopped the [unrelated] playback.
- If you chose channel 7, the recording will go into a weird lockup mode, with the short file length as per Nick's example.
- I've not tried with ABC (either channel) or SBS.

This to me sounds like a firmware bug. I doubt its the hard disk issue discussed a few times in this thread because (a) it's repeatable and ((IMG:style_emoticons/default/cool.gif) if the channel in step 2 is the same as in step 1 the problem does not occur.

I have also done the above steps with a "step 0" being recording something on a 3rd channel for the duration of the experiment. (So for a period both channels were recording). In thise case, I got the same results as above.

Another glitch for me.
Set it to record a movie last night from the EPG.
Checked that the entry was in the timer list and all seemed good.
Checked this morning and nothing there (box was still turned on too).
Had a blackout last night but this was after it would have finished recording (could be an extension of the previous glitch where it didn't stop recording. If that was the case and the power failed it would have dropped it?)

Hi all,

Don't know if this has been mentioned before, but I found an added bonus last night.

This unit appears to have the ability to record 2 channels while watching another channel live - that means 3 tuners or 2.5 however you want to describe it.

I went out and the weekly timers kicked in to record 7 and SBS. I had left the unit playing a previously recorded program and when I pressed stop, the unit went back to channel 10 (which had been the channel on before playing the recorded program), rather than 7 or SBS that were recording.

I checked the 7 and SBS recordings and confirmed that none of them had switched to 10 when I stopped playing to recording off the hard drive.

Haven't had time to repeat the expreiment to see whether the third channel is also saved to the timeshift buffer.

Cheers

Scott

How is that possible. It only has two tuners so therefore it can only tune in to two channels at any one time?

Question?
At the moment I have this hooked up to a CRT via S-Video.
To hook it up to an LCD it looks as though the best possible connection I could make is via SCART set to RGB?
As the antenna has to be plugged into the back of the PVR, how then does it pass the antenna signal to the LCD's HD tuner - via the SCART? Or do does the LCD have to be connected via the TV Out coax output. Or do I have to split the signal using a splitter to each first?

Think you've got two options:

1. Split the antennae signal to connect to both the PVR and the LCD
2. Use the passthrough from the PVR to the LCD.

I'm using the latter and seems to work fine ( was easisest as I couldn't find my splitter ) . Haven't had a chance to try the former to see if it makes any difference though.

Don't know how it is possible but I managed to repeat it last night. Timer recorded 7 and 10 while watching SBS.

I found it did not work if the timers started at the same time, so they need to commence at least 1 min apart.

The time shift buffer did not work so no pausing or rewind and soon as you change the channel you can not get back to the third channel.

The unit did lock up an hour later but I am not sure whether this was related to watching the third channel.

Maybe the tuner has the ability to capture all channels but the processing is limited by the firmware.

Cheers.

Hang on a minute, since when did the 6200PVR have an RF pass thru?

My point exactly.
If someone has this passing a signal to another tuner can they explain how this is done? In my case I am interested in passing a signal to an LCD with a built in hi-def digital tuner?
Zoonie, how are you passing the signal thru?

Scottv

sounds like this 'glitch' mentioned earlier in this forum.
The results vary depending on what channel you chose to record:
- If you chose channel 10, you will find the recording continues, but has changed to the channel in steps 1 & 4.
- If you chose channel 9, the recording will have stopped when you stopped the [unrelated] playback.
- If you chose channel 7, the recording will go into a weird lockup mode, with the short file length as per Nick's example.
- I've not tried with ABC (either channel) or SBS.

This is frustrating me and I am looking for others to confirm this so a software fix can be found for it.

Sorry, think I misread the original question, thought you were talking about Antennae signal. Sorry

Doh!

I am or at least I think I am.
I mean if the antenna is plugged into the back of the PVR and the PVR is connected to the LCD via SCART, how then does the LCD's tuner get an antenna signal? Do I need to split the antenna lead and feed it into both, or does/can the PVR pass the signal to the LCD's tuner?
I can't put it more clearly than that?

As I understand, this PVR does not have RF passthrough capability. I split the signal in, one line going to the PVR, one going to my HD STB, with passthrough to an LCD TV (Not really needed I know, but it was there and I don't like loose cables). I use the HD STB on component, the PVR on composite, my DVD player on HDMI and my media streamer on composite too.

There is RF out on this PVR, but I am not sure what use I can make of it.

Revhead, is it worth upgarding the f/w to 1.04.2A? I don't have any issues with a Seagate drive and base f/w, just wondering if there are any benefits to the upgrade.

Cheers.

Double Post - sorry all

The DS6200 has no pass through with the digital tuners, so, yes; Revhead you will need a splitter of some sort, unless of course your LCD has an RF pass through. – see page 13 of your manual

The RF pass through of the DS6200 is UHF analog. Its main purpose is to connect TVs and VCRs via RF. Default channel is 38, if your remote tuner will not work properly with the default you can change it. You also need to select Pal G, other wise you will not get any sound.
What is the use of it, you may be asking? I used to use this arrangement to send recordings and sometimes live digital to other TVs in my house. Just tune your TVs to the channel you set and plug into your internal RF coax antenna network.
Since I now have a nice HTPC with 802 networking and xbox’s, as front ends, I no longer use the RF system. – see page 21 of your manual

No benefit at all for the seagate HDD model.

Grrr.


This unit has been 90% there for me but just in the last week I have a problem!

I have recorded about 3hours of stuff, two channels at the same time and not watching anything.

Whilst watching a program after it has all finished recording the picture freezes. I can forward all the way to the end but the picture won't change and no sound comes out. It has recorded 3 hours. The progress bar will move as well but not the actual image/sound. Unit is 3 months old.

Don't know because mine came with the latest firmware as per my sig?



Try switching it off then powering it down before restarting. That might make a difference?

I havent read through this topic (40 pages) from start to finish but have had some issues of late. The last few recordings have had choppy sound - ie the sound is in and out and you really dont get the gist of what is going on as you cant hear all the dialogue. This has only just started happening with the latest recordings worse still to the point of being useless. Any ideas on what is going on. I have a Seagate drive model with 1.03.2A software and the hard drive is almost empty (it is never usually very full). Has been going great up until now..............